The present invention relates generally to tooling for the application of mass termination insulation displacement connectors to flat cable having a plurality of parallel, regularly spaced conductors imbedded within an initially planar sheet of insulation. More specifically, the present invention relates to a cable tray usable with such tooling to flatten, position and hold a section of flat cable for accurate presentation within termination tooling.
It has been known to utilize flat cable trays to initially position planar flat cables for accurate presentation of the flat cable to a mass termination connector for application by the termination tooling. A successful termination tool that utilizes a cable tray to support and initially position a planar flat cable for subsequent lateral insertion between the base and cover of a connector for accurate termination of the connector to the flat cable is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,733 owned by common assignee Panduit Corp.
Although the tooling described in the above patent successfully terminates generally planar flat cable, proper termination is inherently dependent upon the operator's manual dexterity in accurate initial positioning of the flat cable relative to the cable tray and the operator's retention of this position as a cable tray is slid into position to be terminated by the tool. Also the tooling is practically incapable of terminating nonplanar termination sections of cables of the round-flat cable type. A Round-flat cable comprises a plurality of parallel insulated conductors alternating along the length of the cable between approximately three centimeter termination sections where adjacent insulated conductors are bonded together to form a flat cable and three centimeter flexible sections of unbonded conductors. The round-flat cable is rolled into a roughly tubular shape and encased within a tubular insulative sheath. Termination of round-flat cable is accomplished by removing a preferably short, approximately 41/2 centimeter, section of the tubular insulative sheath, flattening the non-planar termination section of the cable back to its original planar disposition, positioning, aligning and holding the flattened termination section of the cable on the cable tray in such a manner as to retain the section in its flattened, and aligned disposition on the tray until a connector has been applied thereto. Accurate alignment of a round-flat cable for termination within the prior tooling is made extremely difficult by the limited length of the flattened termination section available to align with the edge of the tray, the typical length of the termination section only being three centimeters, which is a small percentage of the length of the edge of the prior tray available for alignment with the edge of the flattened cable. It has been found that it is extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, to consistently hold the short, non-planar, round-flat cable by hand on the cable tray in an accurately aligned, planar disposition for successful termination within the tooling.